


Risk Curiosity

by Arsenic



Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - X-Men Fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-14
Updated: 2007-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-21 06:15:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20688854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: X-Men AU





	Risk Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Belladonnalin, Bluestargirl6, and Sixwhitelies in the Mikey AU Meme

When Mikey was thirteen his parents had an argument--another one--and Mikey took his hands off his ears at one point, pressed them to the floor of his room, where he was hiding, and the subsequent vibrations tore his house completely apart. Gerard's leg was broken, his mom lost hearing in her right ear from one of the beams falling on her, his dad was hit by flying glass and nearly bled to death. Mikey refused, on principal, to touch a single thing after that, ever.

His parents--who said they loved him, but looked at him with completely justifiable fear--sent him off to Xavier's school for the "gifted". Mikey filled that in with the word "cursed" but didn't tell the other students, because as far as he could tell, they didn't go around nearly killing their families. Gerard drove up to see him every single weekend, hugged Mikey at least twice per weekend--hello and goodbye--and Mikey kept his hands to himself. Gerard always looked like he wanted to ask Mikey to hug him back, but he didn't, and Mikey wouldn't have agreed to in any case.

It was six years of non-stop training in the desperate attempt to control himself, shut down the parts of him that could do harm before Jon showed up and ruined all his hard work.

*

Jonathan Jacob Walker had compulsory touch. He put so much as a finger to someone and if he wanted, the person would be on his knees, be jumping jacks, be killing his own mother. Like Rogue's abilities, no amount of training would control the ability. Jon willingly wore a power-suppressing collar, and an easy-going smile that he somehow made match. He took it off when he so chose--in the Danger room, when fighting, possibly in the comforts of his own room. Mikey was never sure.

Mikey had put a suppressant collar on before. He spent the whole thirty minutes in an extreme state of vertigo, losing everything he'd eaten, ever. Then he'd admitted defeat. Xavier had said, "For some of us, our gifts just run too deep. You're suppressing more than just your gene, you're suppressing vital systems."

Mikey knew Jon's collar made a lot of people in the school nervous. The collars were meant as a way to control them. Mikey understood, though, understood the way using the enemy's weapons was sometimes the only way to triumph over him, especially when there were so many enemies, and so relatively few of them.

Mikey didn't talk to Jon, just like he didn't talk to anyone he wasn't forced to, but Jon talked to him. It wasn't even as though Jon sought him out. They would be assigned to each other's team in the Danger Room and Jon would say, "How're you?" or they'd be next to each other in the dining room and Jon would say, "Anything interesting happen today?"

So it was inevitable, really, that Mikey would eventually ask, "Does the collar hurt?"

Jon looked down at his food and said, "It's not the most comfortable thing in the world. It drives my body temperature up by about three degrees on a regular basis, which, yeah. And some days it gives me a pretty bad headache to go along with the fever."

"Why--"

"When I was twelve, I was having an argument with my best friend. It was over a girl, we were fucking twelve and it was over a stupid girl and I got mad and I pushed him and I said, 'I hope you get hit by a bus and die,' and he went and stood in the middle of the fucking street."

Softly, Mikey asked, "Did he--"

"No, a police officer was directing traffic and he grabbed Tom, held him on the side of the road. They had to fucking restrain him. I figured it out, hours later, when his mom called and asked what had happened. She was hysterical and I ran all two miles to his house put my hands on his shoulders and said 'I don't want that, I don't want that,' and he just stopped. Just went still."

Mikey nodded. Jon said, "He forgave me."

Mikey said, "Yeah," and thought about how Gerard would be up there tomorrow, despite working all week, and probably having better things to do with his weekend than come see a brother who wouldn't give him the courtesy of a hug.

"I figure he deserves to have me burn a little."

And Mikey understood, but he was surprised to find himself in disagreement.

*

Before leaving, Gerard said, "You won't hurt me, you won't." It was Gerard's mantra.

Mikey said, "Safer this way," and didn't touch him. For the first time in years, though, he questioned the decision.

*

Mikey said, when they were sweaty and bruised and panting from kicking a group of Mutant Supremacists collective asses, "Touch me and tell me to touch you."

Jon's victory smile arrested on his face. "Mikey, I don't--"

"Please," Mikey begged, "please."

"Not here," Jon said.

"Where?" Mikey asked.

"I'll come to you," Jon told him.

Mikey actually believed him.

*

Jon took two days, but Mikey waited. He didn't blame Jon. What Mikey was asking of Jon was, in some ways, no less a request than if Jon had asked Mikey to cause a localized earthquake. When Jon did come he stood with his back to the door for several minutes and asked, "How do you want to touch me?"

"Oh." Mikey hadn't even considered that there were actual possibilities. It had been so long since he'd engaged in any sort of touch that anything seemed equal amounts of novel and terrifying. "Um, what do you-- Anything you--"

"No, Mikey, you won't be able to say no, you won't be able to even think it."

Mikey looked at Jon, met his eyes and said, "I wouldn't anyway."

Jon drew in a shaky breath, put his fingers to Mikey's and said, "Touch me, Mikey."

The first touch of Mikey's fingers to the line of Jon's neck was like the feeling under his hands all those years ago, the strength to destroy right beneath his fingertips. And for the first time, the first time in all the years of training, Mikey understood that that power was his now, his to control, and to do with as he chose. He said, "I'm going to kiss you now," and Jon said, "Kiss me, Mikey," just so there wasn't any room for doubt.


End file.
